And my classes became debating clubs. Everybody was allowed to doubt, to argue. Once in a while somebody started worrying about what would happen to the course, because on each single point there was so much argument.
I said, "Don't be worried. All that is needed is a sharpening of your intelligence. The course is a small thing—you can read for it in one night. If you have a sharp mind, even without reading for it you can answer. But if you don't have a sharp mind, even the book can be provided to you and you will not be able to find where the answer is. In a five hundred page book the answer must be somewhere in one paragraph."…
So my classes were totally different. Everything had to be discussed, everything had to be looked into, and in the deepest possible way, from every corner, from every aspect— and accepted only if your intelligence felt satisfied. Otherwise, there was no need to accept it; we could continue the discussion the next day.
And I was amazed to know that when you discuss something and discover the logical pattern, the whole fabric, you need not remember it. It is your own discovery; it remains with you. You cannot forget it.
My students certainly loved me because nobody else would give them so much freedom, nobody else would give them so much respect, nobody else would give them so much love, and nobody else would help them to sharpen their intelligence.
Every teacher was concerned about his salary. I myself never went to collect the salary. I would just give my authority to a student and say, "Whenever the first day of the month comes, you collect the salary, and you can bring it to me. And if you need any part of it you can keep it."
All the years I was in the university somebody or other was bringing me my salary. The man who was distributing the salaries once came to see me just to say, "You never appear. I have been hoping that sometime you would come and I would see you. But seeing that perhaps you will never come to the office, I have come to your house just to see what kind of man you are—because there are professors who start early in the morning, on the first of each month, lining up for their salary. You are always missing. Any student might appear with your signature and authority, and I don't know whether the salary reaches you or not."
I said, "You need not be worried, it has always been reaching me." When you trust someone, it is very difficult for them to deceive.
All the years I was a teacher, not a single student to whom I had given the authority had taken any part of it, although I had told them, "It is up to you. If you feel like having it all, you can have it. If you want to keep a part of it you can keep it. And it is not lent to you so that you have to return it, because I don't want to be bothered by remembering who owes how much money to me. It is simply yours; it doesn't matter." But not a single student ever took any part of the salary.
All the teachers were interested only in the salary, in the competition of getting higher posts. I have seen nobody who was really interested in the students and their future and particularly in their spiritual growth.
Seeing that, I opened a small school of meditation. One of my friends offered his beautiful bungalow and garden, and he made a marble temple for me, for meditations, so at least fifty people could sit and meditate in the temple. Many students, many professors—even the vice-chancellors came to understand what meditation is. transm07
When I became a teacher in the university, the first thing I did—because as I entered the class I saw the girls sitting in this corner, four, five rows just empty in front of me, and the boys sitting in the other corner—I said, "Who am I going to teach—these tables and chairs? And what kind of nonsense is this? Who told you to sit like this? Just get mixed and be in front of me."
They hesitated. They had never heard a teacher tell them to get mixed. I said, "You get mixed immediately; otherwise I am going to report to the vice chancellor that something absolutely unnatural, unpsychological, is happening."
Slowly, hesitantly…. I said, "Don't hesitate! Just move and get mixed. And every day in my class you cannot sit separately. And I don't mind if you try to touch the girl or the girl tries to pull your shirt; whatever is natural is accepted by me. So I don't want you to sit there frozen, shrunken. That is not going to happen in my class. Enjoy being together. I know you have been throwing slips, stones, letters. There is no need. Just sit by her side, give the letter to the girl, or whatever you want to do—because in fact you are all sexually mature; you should do something. And you are just studying philosophy! You are absolutely insane. Is this the time to study philosophy? This is the time to go out and make love. Philosophy is for the old age when you cannot do anything else—you can study philosophy then."
They all were so much afraid. Slowly, slowly they got relaxed, but other classes started feeling jealous of them. Other professors started reporting to the vice chancellor that, "This man is dangerous. He is allowing boys and girls to do things which we have all been prohibiting. Rather than stopping them getting into each other's contact, he is helping them. He says, 'If you don't know how to write a love letter, come to me. I will teach you. Philosophy is secondary—it is not much. We will finish the two years' course in six months. The remaining one year and six months, enjoy, dance, sing. Don't be worried."'
The vice chancellor finally had to call me, and he said, "I have heard all these things. What do you say?"
I said, "You must have been a student in the university."
He said, "Yes. I have been. Otherwise, how I can be the vice chancellor?"
I said, "Then just go back a little and remember those days when girls were sitting far away and you were sitting far away. What was going on in your mind?"
He said, "You seem to be a strange fellow. I have asked you to come because I want to inquire about something."
I said, "That we'll take later on. First answer my question. And be sincere; otherwise I will give you an open challenge tomorrow before the whole university, all the professors, all the students. We can discuss the matter and let them vote."
He said, "Don't get excited. Perhaps you are right. I remember…I am now an old man—and I hope that you will not say this to anybody—I was thinking of the girls. I was not listening to the professor; nobody was listening to the professor. The girls were throwing chits, we were throwing chits, letters were being exchanged."
Then I said, "Can I go?"
He said, "Of course. You simply go and do whatsoever you want. I don't want a public encounter with you. I know you will win in it. You are right. But I am a poor fellow; I have to look after my post. If I start doing such a thing, the government will throw me out of this vice chancellorship."
I said, "I am not interested in your vice chancellorship. You remain vice chancellor, but remember: never call me again, because many complaints will come, but I make it clear to you right now that every time I will be right."
He said, "I have understood."
Then students—boys and girls who were not students of my subject—started asking me, "Can we also come?"
I said, "Philosophy has never been so juicy. Come! Anybody is welcome. I never take attendance. Every month, when the attendance register has to go back, I just fill it randomly—absent, present, absent, present. I just have to remember that everybody gets more than seventy-five percent present so they go to the examination. I don't bother. So you can come."
My classes were overpopulated. People were sitting in the windows. But they were really expected to be in some other class.
Then came complaints again, and the vice chancellor said, "Don't bring any complaint about that man. It is your problem if people are not coming to your class. What can I do? What can he do if they prefer him? And they are not students of philosophy, but they don't want to come to your history, your economics, your politics. What can I do? And that man has challenged me: "Never again call me in, otherwise you will have to face a public encounter."
But so many complaints came from every department that finally he had to come. He knew that it was better not to call me; he had to come to my class. He could not believe it.
In philosophy there are very few students, because philosophy is not a paying subject. But the class was overcrowded; there was not even space for him to enter. I saw him standing in the door behind the students. I told the students, "Let the vice chancellor come in. Let him also enjoy the whole scene that is happening here."
He came in. He could not believe his eyes that girls and boys were all sitting together and so joyously listening to me. Not a single disturbance, because I have prevented all disturbances from the very root. Now the boy is sitting by his girlfriend; there is no need to throw a stone, throw a letter. There is no need.
He said, "I cannot believe that it is such a crowded class and there is pin drop silence."
I said, "There is bound to be because there is no repression. I have told the students that when they want to go they need not ask my permission, they should simply go; when they want to come in they should simply come. They need not ask my permission. It is none of my business whether they are here or not. I enjoy teaching. I will go on teaching. If you want to sit here, sit; otherwise get lost. But nobody goes away."
The vice chancellor said, "This should happen to every class. But I am not a strong man like you; I cannot say to the government that this is the way it should be." last208
When I became a professor myself, I had to make a new arrangement. The arrangement was that in each forty-minute period, twenty minutes I would teach the syllabus as it is written in the books, and twenty minutes I would criticize it. My students said, "We will go mad."
I said, "That is your problem—but I cannot leave these statements without criticism. You can choose; when your examination comes you can choose to write whichever you want. If you want to fail, choose my part. If you want to pass, choose the first part. I am making it clear; I am not deceiving anybody—but I cannot go on deceiving you by teaching you something which I think is absolutely wrong."
The vice-chancellor finally had to call me, and he said to me, "This is a strange type of teaching. I have been receiving every day reports that half the time you teach the syllabus and half the time you have your arguments, which destroy the whole thing that you have taught them. So they come as empty as they had gone in…in fact in more of a mess!"
I said, "I'm not worried about anybody. What have they done with me all these years when I was a student? I was expelled from one college and then another. And you can come one day and listen to whether I am doing any injustice to the prescribed course. When I teach the prescribed course, I do it as totally as possible, to make it clear."
He came one day and he listened, and after twenty minutes he said, "That is really great. I had been also a student of philosophy, but nobody has ever told me this way."
I said, "This is only half the talk. You just wait, because now I am going to destroy it completely, step by step."
And when I destroyed it completely he said, "My God! Now I can understand what the poor students are reporting to me. You are not supposed to be a professor in this structure of education. I can understand that what you are doing is absolutely honest, but this system does not create people of intelligence; this system only creates people of good memory—and that's what is needed. We need clerks, we need stationmasters, we need postmasters—and these people don't need intelligence, they need a good memory."
I said, "In other words you need computers, not men. If this is your educational system, then sooner or later you are going to replace men with computers"—and that's what they are doing. Everywhere they are replacing important positions with computers, because computers are more reliable; they are just memory, no intelligence.
Man, however repressed, has certain intelligence.
When I joined the university I was puzzled because the whole years course was not enough for more than two months; in two months it could be finished. I used to finish it in two months. My professors, senior professors, the head of the department, the dean, they all told me, "This is not the way. You simply finish in two months a course which has to be finished in ten months…that makes us all feel guilty."
I said, "That is your business. If you don't want to feel guilty, finish your course also in two months, or change the syllabus—make the syllabus in such a way that the course is really for ten months. This is lousy, absolute laziness, and I cannot be part of it."
It is because of this that I used to travel so much. My students were not at a loss at all. I would finish their course quickly and then would say, "Now unnecessarily you will be bothering and I will be bothering…what is the point? Once in a while, whenever I am here, I will come. If you have any questions you can ask them, otherwise I will see you when the examinations come round."
And my professors, my department, my head, they were not courageous enough to report me because they knew that if they reported me, then I was going to expose the whole thing: that these people were lousy. And my students would have been my witnesses that I had finished my course—now for what did they want me here too?
I was moving around the country. Everybody knew because the newspapers were publishing that I was in Calcutta addressing the university, I was in Benares…and they knew that I was supposed to be there in Jabalpur. My principal once asked me for dinner, and at his home he said, "Do at least one thing: Go wherever you want, but don't let it be published in the newspapers because then it becomes a problem. People start asking us, 'If he is in Madras…but we don't have any application for leave. He never informs us when he goes or when comes back.'"
I said, "I cannot do anything about that. How can I prevent the journalists reporting? What can I do? I don't know who is reporting; I simply speak and move on, and whatsoever they want to do, they do. But if you have any problems, if anybody reports to you, you can call me. I can put that man right, there and then."
For nine years I managed this way. The whole university was just in a state of shock. They could not believe that nobody raised any question against me. I got the whole salary, and I was rarely seen. But the reason was that my department was afraid to report me, for the simple reason that I had said that I would expose the whole thing.
The country has become lazy. I told the vice-chancellor, "All your courses are not enough for the whole year. What you teach in six years can be taught very easily in two years; four years you are wasting. In those four years you could teach so much that the degrees of no other country could be compared to your degrees. Right now no country even accepts your degrees."
He said, "Perhaps you are right, but no professor will agree because they are happy with the way things are going; they have always done it this way. So I don't want to take the responsibility on myself." ignor29
The superior person never judges. He feels compassion. If he sees something wrong in somebody, he feels compassion. He tries in his own way, without offending the person, to help him. But there is no judgment.
I was a professor in the university but I refused to examine people's answers in their examinations.
The vice-chancellor called me and asked, "What is the matter? First you refused to make up some examination papers, question papers, and now you are refusing to examine the answer."
I said, "That's right! I will not ask questions for the simple reason that in my idea, your whole educational system is utterly wrong. Five questions and you have judged the person's intelligence? It may be just accidental that he knows only those five answers and your judgment about his intelligence is wrong. It may also be possible that he does not know only those five questions and he knows everything else. Then too, your judgment is going to be wrong and inhuman. And I am not going to examine their answer copies, because whenever I see that somebody has not answered rightly, I feel great compassion for him. And because of my compassion, I give him higher marks than to those who have given the right answer, because they don't deserve any compassion."
He said, "What are you saying? The right answer gets less points and the wrong answer gets more?"
I said, "Yes! That's why I am keeping out of it, because then you will call me and ask. It is better—include me out. Don't put me in this game. There are many who are mad, who want to compose question papers because that brings money, who want to examine answer copies because that brings money. I am simply refusing money—anybody else will be happy to have it. Make somebody happy."
He looked at me and he said, "I have always thought that in your eccentricities, there is always something of truth. Yes, I agree. It hurts to give a zero to somebody, if you are not just mechanically judging but seeing the person behind the answer. With great hope he has given this answer—it may be wrong but his hope…what about his hope? His parents may be poor, he may be working in the night and studying in the day. He may not have the chance, the time, to rest which others have, and you are giving him a zero."
I said, "I simply refuse. And if you insist, then don't ask any question about what I do. I can compose question papers but you cannot ask, 'What kind of questions are these?' because I will be trying to figure out questions which don't depend on memory. I will cancel all those people who are depending on memory, because memory is not intelligence. I will compose questions which need intelligence—but intelligence is not found in the textbooks of the universities. Intelligence is not being taught. People are not being trained. Only memory is being filled, with more and more information.
"I will compose questions that will not ask information, they will be immediate questions. Whether the person has been reading or not, coming to the classes or not, if he has intelligence, he will find the answer. If he has no intelligence, then all his memory cannot help. Then don't tell me that I am disturbing the whole structure of the university. I can examine their papers, but I cannot be their judge. Everybody will pass first class, because as far as I am concerned, every human being is a first-class human being. What does it matter that he has not answered one question rightly? And what do you mean by not rightly—you mean that it is not the exact copy of the textbook! The student has not proved himself a parrot."
He said, "You simply forget all about it. From now on, you are free about question papers, answer copies…. " sermon25
In India clothing is divided: Mohammedans have certain dresses, Hindus have certain dresses, Punjabis have certain dresses, Bengalis have certain dresses, South Indians have certain dresses—and it is very difficult…. For example, in South India you can have a wraparound lungi; just a dhoti that you wrap around. And not only that, they pull it up and tuck it over so it is just up to the knees. Even in the universities, professors go to teach in that dress.
I loved the lungi because it is very simple, the simplest: no need of a seamstress, no need of any tailoring, nothing; just any piece of cloth can be turned into a lungi very easily. But I was not in South India, I was in central India where the lungi is used only by vagabonds, loafers, unsocial elements. It is a symbol that the person is uncaring about the society, that he does not bother what you think about him.
When I started going to the university in a lungi, when I entered the university everything stopped for a moment; students came out of their classes, professors came out of their classes. As I passed along the corridor everybody was standing, and I waved to everybody—a good reception!
The vice-chancellor came out: "What is the matter? The whole university is out. The classes have stopped in the middle, professors are out. and there is a silence." He saw me and I waved to him, and he had not even the guts to reply to my wave.
I said, "At least you should wave to me. All these people have come to see my lungi." I think they loved it because every day professors came with beautiful clothes, the costliest clothes. The vice-chancellor was very particular about his clothes, and very famous….
If you had gone into his house you would have been surprised: there was nothing but clothes all around the whole house—he and his servant and the clothes.
I said, "Even when you come, nobody comes out. You just see…a poor lungi—the poorest wear it—has brought them out. And I am going to come every day in this lungi."
He said, "A joke is okay, one day is okay, but don't carry it too far."
I said, "When I do something I do it to the very end."
He said, "What do you mean? You mean you are going to come every day in the lungi?"
I said, "Right now that's what I intend to do. If I am interfered with I can come even without a lungi. You can take my word for it. If I am interfered with in any way, if you try to bring up that this is not proper for a professor and this and that, I don't bother…. If you can keep quiet I will remain in the lungi; if you start doing anything against me—my transfer or anything, anything, then the lungi goes. I will come…and then you will see the real scene."
And it was such a hilarious scene because all the students started clapping when they heard this, and he felt so embarrassed, he simply went back into his room. He never said a single word about the lungi. I inquired many times, "What about my lungi? Is any action being taken against it or not?"
He said, "You just leave me alone—do whatsoever you want to do. And I don't want to say anything because anything said to you is dangerous, one never knows how you will take it. I was not saying, 'Drop the lungi,' I was saying 'come back to your old clothes.'"
I said, "Those are gone, and what is gone is gone—I never look back. Now I am going to be in a lungi."
So first I was going in a lungi, with a long robe. Then one day I dropped the robe and just started using a shawl. Again there was a great drama, but he kept his cool. Everybody came out but he didn't come out perhaps because he was afraid that I had dropped the lungi. He didn't come out of his room. I knocked on his door. He said, "Have you done it?"
I said, "Not yet. You can come out."
He opened the door and just looked out to see whether I was clothed or whether I had dropped everything. He said, "So you have changed now—the robe also?"
I said, "I have changed that too. Have you something to say?"
He said, "I don't want to say a single word. About you I don't even talk to others. Journalists are phoning and asking, 'How is it being allowed in the university?—because that will become a precedent and students may start coming, and other professors may start coming.'
"I tell them, 'Whatsoever happens, even if everybody starts coming in lungis, it is okay with me. I am not going to disturb him, because he threatens me that if I disturb him in any way he can come nude. And he says that nudity is an acceptable spiritual way of life in India. Mahavira was nude, the twenty-four tirthankaras of the Jainas were nude, thousands of monks are still nude, and if a tirthankara can be nude then why not a professor? Nudity in India cannot be in any way disrespected.' "
So he said, "I am telling people, 'If he wants to really create chaos…and he has followers also in the university; there are many students ready to do anything he tells them to. So it is better to leave him alone."'
I have found throughout my life that if you are just a little ready to sacrifice respectability, you can have your way very easily. The society has played a game with you. It has put respectability on too high a pedestal in your mind, and opposite it, all those things that it wants you not to do. So if you do them, you lose respectability. Once you are ready to say, "I don't care about respectability," then the society is absolutely impotent to do anything against your will. misery26
Dr. Radhakrishnan was one of the presidents of India. Before he became a president he was a vice-chancellor, and before he became a vice-chancellor he was a professor. Because a professor, a teacher, had become the president, his birthday was celebrated all over India, particularly in religious institutions—schools, colleges, universities—as a teachers' day.
In my university also, a great celebration was made. The vice-chancellor spoke in golden words about Dr. Radhakrishnan, that it is a glory to every teacher, a dignity to every teacher, that a teacher has become the president of the country, and many other prominent professors spoke. I could not tolerate it any longer. I was not supposed to speak, for the simple reason they knew that I am not reliable; what I will say may disturb the whole thing. But I stood up and I said, "Without me speaking this celebration will not be complete." So the poor vice-chancellor, although his face became pale, invited me to speak. I said, "This is such an absurdity that has been told to you by so many people, from the vice-chancellor, from all the deans, from all the senior professors. Cannot you see a simple thing, that a teacher has become a politician? It is a degradation; it is not respect. A teacher does not find himself dignified as a teacher—he wants to become the president of the country. This is not a teachers' day. I will call the day `teachers' day' when a president resigns and joins a school and starts teaching there. That will be the teachers' day.
The logic is so simple—that he respects teaching, and loves teaching, more than being a president.
The vice-chancellor and the professors who were sitting on the stage were so shocked, because all the students, the whole crowd, clapped. They were agreeing with me. Just these few idiots were not clapping. I said, "You should start clapping. Can't you see, everybody is clapping, and you look so stupid not clapping." And you will be surprised—they started. What else to do? And when they started, then the students started dancing and clapping.
I said, "Now the celebration is complete; otherwise, what celebration was it? And you have been praising a man who was serving the British government—he never fought for India's freedom. He was a professor in Calcutta University, and he stole a student's thesis, the whole thesis. He was one of the examiners, and he went on delaying, saying, `I am going through it.' Meanwhile, he managed to have it published in England, in his name. And when it was published, then he returned the thesis to the university.
"The student was a poor student, but still he went to the high court. But he was such a poor man…. The case was in the high court for a few months, and Radhakrishnan had not a single word to say, because page after page, chapter after chapter, were verbatim exactly the same as the thesis.
"His whole strategy was that the book had been published before; but the university knew that the thesis has been given to him before the publication of his book. It was certain that he was going to be punished for it. It was such an ugly act. He gave ten thousand rupees to the student—and he was such a poor man, that he thought that it was better to withdraw the case. The case was withdrawn, but that does not make any difference.
"This man has used bribes to become the vice-chancellor; and the whole of India knew about the case, the whole of India knew about his bribery. And still they were praising him as if he was a sage."
When I raised these questions, all their faces fell, and the vice-chancellor uttered to the man sitting by his side, "I was afraid of this from the very beginning. That's why I had not invited him to speak. But I never thought that he should have been prevented from coming into the conference."
I said, "If you have any answer, you can give the answer. This man has not been a teacher, but a thief. And if he becomes a politician, it is not a credit to the profession of the teachers, it is a discredit. If he has still any sense, he should resign and become a teacher again."
But this is how things are. The vice-chancellor has to praise him. After the meeting he told me, "It is not good for you. They will take revenge." I said, "I am ready for every revenge, but I am not ready to say things which are absolute lies." He said, "But I cannot say it. He has appointed me as vice-chancellor of this university." This way, things go on. He has appointed him as vice-chancellor, so he has to praise him. The whole society lives in a subtle kind of hypocrisy, in a conspiracy. One has to be courageous enough to stand alone. And he was right, that I would be taken into all kinds of revengeful situations; they have happened, they are still continuing to happen. My whole life they will continue to take revenge just because I am not ready to compromise with the hypocrisy that society has decided to live with.
But it gives me immense joy that I am not part of a crowd, and I don't want my people to be part of a crowd. Even if you have to sacrifice your whole life, it is more joyful than to be a slave. It is better to be on the cross than to be a slave of unconscious, fast-asleep people. zara113
I was called to a seminar; many universities' vice-chancellors and chancellors had gathered there. They were much worried about the indiscipline in the schools, colleges and universities, and they were much worried about the new generation's disrespectful attitude towards the teachers.
I listened to their views and I told them, "I see that somewhere the very basis is missing. A teacher is one who is respected naturally, so a teacher cannot demand respect. If the teacher demands respect, he simply shows that he is not a teacher; he has chosen the wrong profession, that is not his vocation. The very definition of a teacher is one who is naturally respected; not that you have to respect him. If you have to respect him, what type of respect is this going to be? Just look: 'have to respect'—the whole beauty is lost, the respect is not alive. If it has to be done, then it is not there. When it is there, nobody is conscious about it, nobody is self-conscious about it. It simply flows. Whenever a teacher is there it simply flows."
So I asked the seminar: "Rather than asking students to respect the teachers, you please decide again—you must be choosing wrong teachers, who are not teachers at all."
Teachers are as much born as poets, it is a great art. Everybody cannot be a teacher, but because of universal education millions of teachers are required. Just think of a society that thinks that poetry is to be taught by poets and everybody is to be taught poetry. Then millions of poets will be required. Of course, then there will be poets' training colleges. Those poets will be bogus, and then they will ask: Applaud us!—because we are poets. Why are you not respecting us? This has happened with teachers.
In the past there were very few teachers. People used to travel thousands of miles to find a teacher, to be with him. There was tremendous respect, but the respect depended on the quality of the teacher. It was not an expectation from the disciple or from the student or the pupil. It simply happened. search02
I had to fight with the university continuously. They were not ready to include yoga or meditation in the university courses, but they go on bragging that this is the land of Gautam Buddha and Mahavira and Bodhidharma and Patanjali and Kabir and Nanak—they go on bragging, but they don't see what they are doing. Their journalism, their education, their politics, has no trace of Kabir, or Nanak, or Patanjali, or Buddha. They are under the impact of Western masters. dawn19
I was lecturing in different universities in India—and India has almost one hundred universities. The students were the ones who got the point most. I was teaching in religious conferences. The people who gathered to listen got the point, but the organizers, the religious leaders, became my enemies.
So any conference, any gathering of religious people I have visited only once, I was not invited there again. Just in one visit I had disturbed their people so much, stirred so many doubts and questions in their minds. Because this is one of my basic standpoints: the way to truth is not belief, but doubt; not faith, but inquiry…. last113
Osho sums up his address to students at a meeting:*
You may have thought I would tell you some methods to pass examinations, to succeed, to get ahead of others, to reach higher positions. No, I will not do that. Enough has been told to you about these things. We are suffering tremendously because of that.
I pray you do not succeed, but that you be real human beings. Success is not a JUSTIFY">I pray you do not succeed, but that you be real human beings. Success is not a value. I pray you do not reach any positions of power, but that you reach your inner being, where there is something worthwhile. I pray you do not compete with anyone, but awaken the potential of loving your own individuality. I pray that you too can become a brick in the creation of a new culture—this is what I wish for you.
I am very grateful to you for having listened to me so silently, with such love. I offer my salutations to that new man that is residing within us all. Please accept my salutations to that god. educa03
*Note:Stories of Osho's early life are later recollections by him. Some of the first available transcripts of his lectures are those given at universities throughout India.
Osho addresses teachers at Podder College, Bombay:
But what education of love, what initiation in love have we given? What certificates of love have we conferred? And then if in three thousand years man has become completely loveless, murderous and violent, who is responsible for it? None other than our education can be held responsible for it.
But the teachers need not feel offended by this, because putting this responsibility on education means I am giving lots of honor to education; I am saying education is the center of life. Hence the teacher should be ready to bear the main responsibility; tomorrow the main honor too can be his. Tomorrow, if life is transformed, it is education which will receive the honor. And today if life has become polluted and poisoned, then the educationist should be prepared to accept the main charge and responsibility also. This is indicative of education being central. What I am saying is very respectful—that education is central. Neither the politicians nor the religious leaders are as responsible as the teacher is.
But the coming world will also only bestow honor on the teacher if he is able to lay down some basis for changing life. If you are not able to change it, tomorrow, children themselves will start changing it. educa07
Osho addresses a meeting at Birla Krida Kendra, Bombay:
Sa Vidya Ya Vimuktaye. Knowledge is that which liberates.
This morning I would like to say a few things to you on this subject. This is a marvellous saying. It is the most original definition of knowledge. This is the definition of knowledge as well as its criterion. But perhaps you may not know the other side of the situation. We are not liberated. Whatsoever we have learned cannot have been right knowledge, it must be false knowledge. Our life has not known what liberation is, so the schools in which we have studied must not have been schools but anti-schools, because the very test and definition of knowledge is that it helps us in our life to attain the bliss of liberation.
May be this system will create the people of good memory. This is the fact that this is the need in today’s time. We want clerks, professionals, managers, business man/women etc and they will always need a good memory. But still the prime focus of education should be sharpening the intelligence of students. Where every one is allowed to discuss, where minds are free, where we can create a real man with intelligence, where every aspect of the disciple had to look in the deepest possible way, where our curious minds are satisfied with the information and lectures. There should be discussions in the classrooms that discover the logic of our inner, the behavior patterns that can be changed in liberation and thoughtful process, where discovery of our real talent is respected and we are prepare to face the challenge with real life situations, where education is a thoughtful process not mere a parrot reading.
And believe me students will respect a teacher with depth of
their hearts because they are allowed to argue, put their point of view and
their intelligence are sharpen with the logic not mere with bookish knowledge.
And when there is no repression of thoughts and ideas. In that environment
every disciple will enjoy the reading and teachers will love to guide their
students in all possible ways they can reach to them.
HAPPY TEACHERS DAY.
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